Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / UNSOLVED: Two Teen Girls and Mom Disappear From Family Home, Only Clue is Broken Porch Light

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UNSOLVED: Two Teen Girls and Mom Disappear From Family Home, Only Clue is Broken Porch Light · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The so called spring Filled
0:15
Speaker 1: three that sounds like a gang of some sort. No,
0:21
Speaker 1: the spring Field Three anything but wrongdoers. They are three women,
0:28
Speaker 1: including two teams, that vanish seemingly without a trace. I mean,
0:34
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories, Thank you for being
0:37
Speaker 1: with us here at Fox Nation and Serious one eleven.
0:41
Speaker 1: The spring Field Three three words that still haunt law enforcement.
0:50
Speaker 1: Take a listen now to our friends at NBC. Friends
0:53
Speaker 1: and family of nineteen year old Suzanne Streeter an eighteen
0:55
Speaker 1: year old Stacy McCall say, it's not like them to
0:58
Speaker 1: just leave and I tell any one where they're going.
1:01
Speaker 1: She calls and lets me know where she's going to be.
1:04
Speaker 1: She's never missed work, She's a very conscious, she's young, long.
1:09
Speaker 1: We're questioning everybody at this time, friends, relatives, anyone that
1:13
Speaker 1: has information, anyone that may have seen him last, Neighbors,
1:17
Speaker 1: We've a neighborhood canvas. We're just checking every league weekend
1:20
Speaker 1: at this time, checking every league canvassing neighborhoods. How could
1:25
Speaker 1: three women just disappear? Two of them teen, Suzanne Streeter
1:31
Speaker 1: just nineteen, Stacy McCall just eighteen, and Suzanne's mother, Cheryl Levitt,
1:40
Speaker 1: a mother and two teen girls just vanish. No sign
1:45
Speaker 1: of them anywhere, you know, very often to jes Scott
1:49
Speaker 1: Morgan joining me, Professor forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of
1:53
Speaker 1: Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon at starvar Brandy hit
1:56
Speaker 1: series on iHeart Body backs that, just Scott Morgan. We
2:01
Speaker 1: every day here I do missing person, but rarely do
2:05
Speaker 1: you see a mom and two teens just vanish. Yeah,
2:11
Speaker 1: how can that be that you have three people that
2:14
Speaker 1: are just living their lives and suddenly they're gone. They're
2:18
Speaker 1: vaporized into the air, and no one has seen or
2:21
Speaker 1: heard from them since that moment in time, you know,
2:24
Speaker 1: even though they may have been seen doing activities earlier
2:27
Speaker 1: in the day that gave you a hint that everything
2:29
Speaker 1: was normal in their life. The next morning they're completely
2:33
Speaker 1: gone and no one ever hears from them again. It's highly,
2:36
Speaker 1: highly unusual. Let me go to Nicoldeboard hots Globe, high
2:39
Speaker 1: profile defense lawyer joining us out of Houston. Former prosecutor.
2:43
Speaker 1: She's now in Houston Criminal Defense dot Com. Nicole, you
2:46
Speaker 1: and I have both tried, at least I've prosecuted, You've
2:50
Speaker 1: done defense and prosecutional work missing people, kidnapped people, murders
2:56
Speaker 1: sometimes that don't have a body to describe for that.
3:00
Speaker 1: But three at once, including two teen girls and one
3:05
Speaker 1: of their mother, Suzanne's mother, that's very unusual. It's very
3:09
Speaker 1: very unusual. It almost makes you wonder whether or not
3:12
Speaker 1: they knew the person that was interfacing with them right
3:16
Speaker 1: before their disappearance or ultimate death, because trying to overpower
3:20
Speaker 1: three people is an unusual thing to be able to do,
3:25
Speaker 1: even if you're armed, you know, with no commotion being
3:28
Speaker 1: overheard by neighbors and no clue being left behind. So
3:32
Speaker 1: it's a very unusual case. These are very difficult for
3:36
Speaker 1: the prosecution. Now. A lot of comparisons have been made
3:39
Speaker 1: to the two little girls, Abbey and Liberty, Abigail and
3:44
Speaker 1: Liberty that went missing in Delphi. Their bodies later found murdered.
3:51
Speaker 1: But those were two young girls. This very young as
3:56
Speaker 1: in tweens. But these are two older teens eighteen and nineteen,
4:02
Speaker 1: plus their grown mother. That's a very big difference. Joining
4:07
Speaker 1: me is Rick bookout from a Springfield police officer. There's
4:12
Speaker 1: a big difference in abducting little children like twelve thirteen
4:17
Speaker 1: as opposed to an eighteen year old and nineteen year old,
4:20
Speaker 1: and one of their moms in her forties. That's true.
4:23
Speaker 1: The only thing that I can think of is if
4:26
Speaker 1: you're a parent, you know, you might understand a little better.
4:29
Speaker 1: But you know, I've heard there must have been more
4:32
Speaker 1: than one person. One person could have gotten them out
4:34
Speaker 1: of the house. I don't know. I tend to think
4:37
Speaker 1: that if you're a parent and someone has a gun
4:40
Speaker 1: to your child's head, you're probably gonna You're gonna be quiet,
4:43
Speaker 1: You're gonna do whatever they tell you to do. I
4:45
Speaker 1: could see that. We also have cases of an entire
4:49
Speaker 1: family disappearing or an entire family being killed. But like
4:54
Speaker 1: you just heard a former cop bookout state, parents will
4:59
Speaker 1: do a lot if somebody's got a gun to their
5:01
Speaker 1: child's head. So how to two chains and one of
5:04
Speaker 1: their mothers just vanish? The location Springfield, Missouri. Take a
5:12
Speaker 1: listen to Maddie Sisler NBC. The last time anyone saw
5:17
Speaker 1: Susan Streeter or Stacy McCall was over the weekend at
5:20
Speaker 1: this house in Battlefield. The girls had gathered here with
5:23
Speaker 1: some friends after graduating from Kickapool High School on Saturday.
5:27
Speaker 1: They left here early Sunday morning, they say they were
5:30
Speaker 1: going to the other girl's house and they were going
5:33
Speaker 1: to be spending the night there, and they call me
5:35
Speaker 1: in the morning so we could get a white water
5:38
Speaker 1: and I caught the around I call me in the morning,
5:40
Speaker 1: so I called them, and I called my card in
5:43
Speaker 1: car my dot my answer. So I went over there
5:46
Speaker 1: and staying there, you were hearing Maddie Sisler at NBC,
5:51
Speaker 1: and he were also hearing friends. I'm the missing Girls
5:56
Speaker 1: joining me right now a special guest writer and host
6:00
Speaker 1: of the Spring Full three, A small Town Disappearance, and
6:05
Speaker 1: Roderick Jones, and thank you for being with us. Tell
6:09
Speaker 1: me about the day that these three women just vanish. Well,
6:14
Speaker 1: two of the girls were graduating, which was Stacy and Susie.
6:18
Speaker 1: So they had graduated from Kickapoo High School that day
6:22
Speaker 1: and then they were going out to do what children
6:24
Speaker 1: normally do, our teams normally do after graduation, which was
6:28
Speaker 1: to go to some parties. And they'd spent the evening
6:31
Speaker 1: doing that, a seemingly normal celebratory day. And after the parties,
6:37
Speaker 1: they had intended to stay at one front house and
6:40
Speaker 1: ended up going over to Susie's house where she lived
6:43
Speaker 1: with her mother, and that was presumably about two fifteen
6:47
Speaker 1: in the am, and by the morning, no one was
6:51
Speaker 1: found out at the house, even though all three cars
6:54
Speaker 1: were there and their purses were there along with their keys. Okay,
6:57
Speaker 1: I want to let that soak in. And Anne is
7:02
Speaker 1: joining us, really an expert on this along with Rick.
7:06
Speaker 1: Book out and tell me that one more time. They
7:12
Speaker 1: graduated that day from Kickapoo High. They planned to go
7:16
Speaker 1: to different senior parties, and we're all going to stay
7:21
Speaker 1: at one girl's house overnight. Correct, they were. They had
7:25
Speaker 1: actually changed plans a couple of times, and Stacy had
7:27
Speaker 1: called her mother to let her know that they were
7:30
Speaker 1: changing their plans. So we're going to stay at some
7:32
Speaker 1: friend's house. And then ultimately early in the morning hours
7:37
Speaker 1: they changed their mind and went over to Susie's house
7:40
Speaker 1: on Delmar Street, where she lives with her mother. I
7:43
Speaker 1: wonder why the change of plans, But that said, I mean,
7:47
Speaker 1: I could see them getting carjacks, say, on the way
7:51
Speaker 1: from one home to the next. But then you also
7:54
Speaker 1: have the mother. Cheryl Lovett, Suzanne's mom vanished as well. Guys,
8:00
Speaker 1: take a listen to our friends at NBC. This is
8:03
Speaker 1: Susanne Streeter's mom, Cheryl Lovett. She's also missing. Last scene
8:08
Speaker 1: at her daughter's graduation ceremony at Hammond Student Center on Saturday.
8:12
Speaker 1: She lived in this house on nast Elmar in Springfield.
8:15
Speaker 1: That's where police found the three missing women's cars. Authorities
8:18
Speaker 1: say there was no sign of a struggle. In fact,
8:21
Speaker 1: the front door was unlocked, the TV was on, their
8:24
Speaker 1: clothes were still there, their purses and personal items untouched. Now,
8:29
Speaker 1: as I recall, the porch light had been broken. Everything
8:36
Speaker 1: else seemed to be in place, but the porch light
8:42
Speaker 1: was broken. No sign of a struggle inside the home.
8:47
Speaker 1: I want to go back to former Springfield, Missouri police officer,
8:52
Speaker 1: the first officer on the scene, Rick book Out, is
8:58
Speaker 1: with us. Tell me about when you got the call
9:03
Speaker 1: to go to the scene. It was I was working
9:06
Speaker 1: third shift and that started at about nine thirty pm.
9:12
Speaker 1: Attended briefing, got my equipment, got in my car, and
9:17
Speaker 1: headed out and as I recalled, that was probably the
9:20
Speaker 1: first call for service that I had. Pretty shortly after
9:24
Speaker 1: going into service. When I got to the house, there
9:29
Speaker 1: were lots of people there, people in the yard, people
9:34
Speaker 1: in the house, people going in and out of the house,
9:40
Speaker 1: and there were some there were some adults, some parents there,
9:42
Speaker 1: and I had told me that, you know, they were
9:47
Speaker 1: concerned because the I think the girls were supposed to
9:53
Speaker 1: stay at someone else's house and then they were all
9:55
Speaker 1: going to get up early the next morning and go
9:57
Speaker 1: to a water park in the Branson area the next morning.
10:00
Speaker 1: But there were too many people in the house. Um,
10:04
Speaker 1: so they weren't they weren't going to be able to
10:06
Speaker 1: stay there as they had planned. So Susie had, you know,
10:14
Speaker 1: had known Stacy, they had grown up. I think they
10:17
Speaker 1: had been friends since high school, since grade school. And
10:19
Speaker 1: she said, we'll just come home with me. We'll stay
10:21
Speaker 1: at my house and then we'll get up and go
10:22
Speaker 1: meet everybody in the morning. And someone had mentioned to
10:26
Speaker 1: me about the It was actually the globe of the
10:30
Speaker 1: porch light, as I recall, the porch the light worked.
10:33
Speaker 1: It was just the globe had fallen and they said
10:37
Speaker 1: it was broken on the steps of the front porch.
10:41
Speaker 1: And I said, well, where's the glass and they said, oh, well,
10:45
Speaker 1: we cleaned it up and threw it in the trash.
10:47
Speaker 1: M So just from there I tried to you know,
10:54
Speaker 1: interview the teens that were there, and the parents to
10:58
Speaker 1: get an idea of what was going on. Who called
11:00
Speaker 1: in their disappearance. As I recall, Stacy's mother had called,
11:06
Speaker 1: so Stacy's mom Janice McCall, that's where they were supposed
11:10
Speaker 1: to stay that night, and instead they went over to Suzanne's.
11:14
Speaker 1: I think that the house where they were planning this
11:17
Speaker 1: stay was actually out in the county somewhere, and so
11:21
Speaker 1: they had decided to just go back there. And there
11:25
Speaker 1: had been some time elapsed since because the other kids
11:30
Speaker 1: had the next morning had gotten up and tried to
11:33
Speaker 1: call them and they got no answer. So they went
11:36
Speaker 1: ahead and went to the water park, spent the day,
11:40
Speaker 1: came back. I went to check on them, and they
11:43
Speaker 1: still couldn't find them. So they went to the house
11:46
Speaker 1: and no one was home. So, you know, sometime had
11:50
Speaker 1: had gone by before they called missus McCall and said, hey,
11:55
Speaker 1: you know, we don't we don't know what's going on,
11:56
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, we need to call the police. Yeah,
12:00
Speaker 1: you know what. It was the home of Janelle Kirby,
12:02
Speaker 1: another one of their friends. They were going to stay
12:04
Speaker 1: there and then decided to go stay at Suzanne's house.
12:21
Speaker 1: Time Stories with Nancy, Grace and Robert Jones joining me,
12:26
Speaker 1: writer and host of the podcast. Is Springfield three a
12:29
Speaker 1: small town disappearance? And they were supposed to stay at
12:34
Speaker 1: Janelle Kirby's home. So was there a big distance between
12:38
Speaker 1: Janelle and Suzanne's home? You know? I would say there's
12:41
Speaker 1: probably a fifteen minute drive between where Janelle lived and
12:45
Speaker 1: where they ended up, which was at seventeen seventeen Delmar,
12:49
Speaker 1: a little bit closer to the downtown area of Springfield.
12:52
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get my head around the logistics.
12:54
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, did someone see them headed over to Suzanne's home?
13:00
Speaker 1: It's a fifteen minute drive. Would that have been time?
13:03
Speaker 1: But it was late? Was it late at night when
13:06
Speaker 1: they decided to spend the night at Susanne's It was
13:09
Speaker 1: it was about two in the morning. And so they
13:12
Speaker 1: had went over to Janelle's initially, and she had a
13:14
Speaker 1: lot of people in town. Of course the girls that
13:16
Speaker 1: graduated that day, so there were family members there, and
13:20
Speaker 1: because because there wasn't enough space, they ended up driving
13:23
Speaker 1: over to Susie and Cheryl's house. And something that we
13:27
Speaker 1: talked about on the podcast is that the Janelle's mother
13:31
Speaker 1: heard Susie say to Stacy follow me to my house,
13:36
Speaker 1: she said, okay, and that was the last of anyone
13:39
Speaker 1: had heard of them. They both presumably drove their cars
13:42
Speaker 1: over to Delmar Street and presumably went to bed. Their
13:46
Speaker 1: clothes had been you know, removed and folded that they
13:48
Speaker 1: had been wearing that day. There were washed class with
13:52
Speaker 1: makeup in the bin, so presumably they had been to
13:56
Speaker 1: bed that night, so they made it there. You know,
14:00
Speaker 1: those details are so important in this case. To doctor
14:04
Speaker 1: Sherry Schwartz joining me forensic psychologists specializing in criminal behavior,
14:10
Speaker 1: you can find her at panther mitigation dot com. She's
14:13
Speaker 1: the author of Criminal Behavior and where law and psychology intersect.
14:18
Speaker 1: Doctor Sherry, thank you for being with us, you know,
14:21
Speaker 1: commenting on the case, analyzing the case. It's all about logistics, timelines,
14:29
Speaker 1: forensic evidence. But when Anne Roderick Jones just said the
14:34
Speaker 1: clothes they had worn to graduation and the graduation parties
14:38
Speaker 1: were neatly folded up, the makeup wipes were found where
14:45
Speaker 1: they had taken off all their makeup from the night.
14:47
Speaker 1: It's suddenly struck home and it makes me think of
14:51
Speaker 1: my little girl Lucy when she comes back from you know,
14:55
Speaker 1: one of her little school get togethers of her getting
14:59
Speaker 1: ready forbid, and that indicates to me they made it
15:03
Speaker 1: all the way to Suzanne's safely, and just like Anne says,
15:08
Speaker 1: got ready for bed. But it really humanizes these two
15:15
Speaker 1: teen girls, doesn't it. It certainly does, and it makes it.
15:20
Speaker 1: It shows very clearly that they were alive right seemingly
15:25
Speaker 1: when they got home, that they were doing what most
15:28
Speaker 1: women young and old. Dude, take your makeup off for
15:30
Speaker 1: the day, relax, get yourself ready and go to bed.
15:35
Speaker 1: And so that might make family members or anybody who
15:38
Speaker 1: went into the house not think there was any emergency.
15:41
Speaker 1: HI question to either Rick book Out, former Springfield police
15:45
Speaker 1: officer who's the first on the scene, and Anne Roderick Jones,
15:49
Speaker 1: who has created an incredible podcast about the Springfield three.
15:54
Speaker 1: Where was Susanne's dad Levin? Did he live in the
16:01
Speaker 1: home as well? I know that he was not living
16:03
Speaker 1: in the house. That Cheryl was a single mother. She
16:06
Speaker 1: was from the Seattle area and she had moved to
16:09
Speaker 1: Springfield just a few years prior, I believe, and decided
16:15
Speaker 1: to bring her daughter with her and they lived in
16:18
Speaker 1: that home, just the two of them, on del Mar.
16:20
Speaker 1: She was a hairstylist and she worked at a local salon.
16:23
Speaker 1: So the dad wasn't living in the home. My guess
16:26
Speaker 1: is he was back in Seattle. And you know Nicole
16:30
Speaker 1: Debard hots Globe, high profile criminal defense attorney out of Houston.
16:34
Speaker 1: You know where I'm headed. The first thing you do
16:36
Speaker 1: is look at all the males connected to the crime scene, absolutely,
16:39
Speaker 1: and you know it'll be curious to hear what details
16:42
Speaker 1: they collected and ultimately, now with the benefit of time,
16:47
Speaker 1: how those details line up with what we can determine
16:50
Speaker 1: as forensically accurate. Things have changed quite a bit since
16:54
Speaker 1: the time of this original scene investigation. So let's go
16:58
Speaker 1: over what we know. To these two teen girls and
17:02
Speaker 1: one of their moms disappear, where do they end up?
17:09
Speaker 1: Baffling to me, we're not getting any evidence out of
17:12
Speaker 1: the home. Take a list of to Francis Watson ky TV,
17:16
Speaker 1: I saw her graduate Saturday night, and now she's gone
17:20
Speaker 1: inside the house. Nothing seemed to be out of place,
17:23
Speaker 1: No personal items were missing, their keys and purses accounted for,
17:27
Speaker 1: their cars parked in the driveway. The three women seemed
17:30
Speaker 1: to have vanished without a trace of the finger. The
17:35
Speaker 1: community joining the police department in the search, following every lead.
17:39
Speaker 1: We're looking for anything. We're not just looking for these three.
17:43
Speaker 1: We are exploring all avenues this time. I'm missus McCall
17:47
Speaker 1: and this is my daughter. You know, I'm just thinking
17:49
Speaker 1: this through. Back to Rick Bookhaut for our Springfield police officer,
17:53
Speaker 1: the first on the scene, the missing Springfield three. So
17:58
Speaker 1: tell me your recollection of the scene. So the mom's
18:01
Speaker 1: car and both the girls cars were there, Yeah, that's correct.
18:07
Speaker 1: It appeared that everything was normal when they arrived. Nothing
18:11
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary. They parked, their vehicles, had gone
18:15
Speaker 1: in the house. It looked like they turned on the TV.
18:18
Speaker 1: We're getting ready for bed. As Anne had mentioned, they
18:24
Speaker 1: at least Stacy had had taken her shorts off. She
18:27
Speaker 1: had taken her jewelry off, put it in the pockets
18:30
Speaker 1: of her shorts. There might have been some medication in
18:32
Speaker 1: there as well. Folded these items, and it disappeared as
18:39
Speaker 1: if they were just getting ready to go to bed
18:41
Speaker 1: without any any hint of anything wrong. And there were
18:49
Speaker 1: talking about the crime scene itself. There were so many
18:52
Speaker 1: people in the house, in the yard, in and out,
18:56
Speaker 1: back and forth, you know, any any crime scene there
18:58
Speaker 1: might have been, you know, it was pretty well damaged
19:02
Speaker 1: by that time, contaminated and destroyed. Two things just jump
19:07
Speaker 1: out at me speaking of destroying a crime scene. They
19:11
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier book out first cop on the scene,
19:16
Speaker 1: the glass from the broken globe on the porch slide
19:21
Speaker 1: had been cleared off the porch. What evidence could have
19:27
Speaker 1: been yielded from that globe? Well, it's hard to say,
19:32
Speaker 1: you know, if there were any pieces large enough I
19:34
Speaker 1: could have I think there might have been some fingerprint
19:37
Speaker 1: evidence that might have been obtained from that. We didn't
19:41
Speaker 1: have the luxury of DNA at the time. The media
19:46
Speaker 1: had reported things like the house had been cleaned, and
19:51
Speaker 1: I don't know that that wasn't necessarily the case. I
19:53
Speaker 1: think they probably got that from the statement, you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: when I said where's the broken glass and they said, well,
19:59
Speaker 1: we it up? And you know, I guess, in all
20:03
Speaker 1: fairness to the kids, they had no idea, you know,
20:06
Speaker 1: they had no idea that something like this had happened. Well,
20:11
Speaker 1: what can you tell me about a message on the
20:13
Speaker 1: answering machine allegedly being deleted? Well, I was told while
20:17
Speaker 1: I was there that they said, hey, by the way,
20:20
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if this means anything, But
20:22
Speaker 1: there were some disconcerting messages on the answering machine, and
20:27
Speaker 1: as I recall, I mean it's been a long time ago,
20:30
Speaker 1: but as I recall, there was one that I listened
20:32
Speaker 1: to that it just sounded like a random. I've scene
20:37
Speaker 1: phone call wasn't specific to anyone. And then someone had said, well,
20:44
Speaker 1: there were others, but they had been deleted. Normally I
20:47
Speaker 1: would say it was a random, but in conjuncture with
20:49
Speaker 1: them disappearing, I would take a second look at it.
20:52
Speaker 1: Now another thing, a friend, one of their friends, Kirby
20:57
Speaker 1: and her boyfriend, visited the home after the two failed
21:02
Speaker 1: to show up as they were supposed to, you know,
21:05
Speaker 1: to go to the water park. Upon arriving, Kirby found
21:09
Speaker 1: the front door unlocked. Entered, there were no sign of
21:13
Speaker 1: the Springfield three. Each woman's cars parked outside the glass
21:18
Speaker 1: lampshade on the porchlight shattered the lightbulb intact, that's what happened.
21:24
Speaker 1: Kirby and her boyfriend innocently cleaned up the glass, not
21:28
Speaker 1: really realizing anything was gone, but also the dog, Streeter's dog,
21:36
Speaker 1: a Yorkshire Terrier named Cinnamon, was highly agitated, and while
21:42
Speaker 1: they were there, Kirby answered the phone and called it
21:46
Speaker 1: a strange and disturbing call from an unidentified male who
21:50
Speaker 1: made sex innuendos. Now that's happening the morning that they're
21:58
Speaker 1: noticed to be gone. I fought of that highly coincidental. J.
22:03
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, Well, there are many coincidences along along with this.
22:09
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sitting here thinking, you know, you've got
22:12
Speaker 1: three women who and two of which had been at
22:16
Speaker 1: parties earlier in the evening, you know, who would have
22:19
Speaker 1: had an awareness that they were at the parties, leaving
22:23
Speaker 1: the parties, and then at the last minute, there's like
22:26
Speaker 1: this decision apparently to sleep at the house from which
22:31
Speaker 1: they disappeared. This is not initially in the plan. So
22:35
Speaker 1: when you have this kind of and it looks to
22:37
Speaker 1: me like a there's not like a sense of forced
22:42
Speaker 1: energy with this, you know, like you know, we're gonna
22:45
Speaker 1: grab you and pull you out of the house, kicking
22:46
Speaker 1: and screaming. You've got people that have changed out of
22:50
Speaker 1: their daily wear. My question is are their shoes still
22:55
Speaker 1: in the house. Specifically to the individual that doesn't live
22:58
Speaker 1: in the house, did they walk out of the door barefooted?
23:00
Speaker 1: Because you have to assume that the only pair of
23:02
Speaker 1: shoes that they would have had would have been the
23:04
Speaker 1: ones that they walked in there with. And the broken
23:08
Speaker 1: class is interesting to me because I would really want
23:11
Speaker 1: to know. And Austin Bookman had mentioned that the light
23:16
Speaker 1: was still functioning. I think that's correct. Was this an
23:19
Speaker 1: attempt to knock out the light so that no one
23:21
Speaker 1: could see their face? Maybe perhaps a perpetrator when they
23:25
Speaker 1: came to the door. I think that that's kind of
23:28
Speaker 1: an interesting point. And how are you going to wrangle
23:31
Speaker 1: three three not just one, but three people and get
23:35
Speaker 1: them out of the house. And there's other It looks
23:37
Speaker 1: like there's other residences in the immediate vicinity of this location,
23:42
Speaker 1: so I don't know. To me, it seems as though
23:45
Speaker 1: somebody would have had to have very specific, intimate knowledge
23:49
Speaker 1: of their comings and going. We may know about a
23:51
Speaker 1: secondary crime scene. Take a listen to our Frenzy Ko
23:56
Speaker 1: l R, a clerk at this Southside convenience store, says
24:00
Speaker 1: she saw Cheryl of it early on the morning the
24:02
Speaker 1: three women disappeared looking for her daughter and two friends.
24:05
Speaker 1: Police have been unable to confirm that report, though did
24:08
Speaker 1: let it make a call a short time later from
24:10
Speaker 1: this nearby store. Police can't confirm that either, but are
24:14
Speaker 1: trying to obtain records from pay phones in the area.
24:17
Speaker 1: We're the three women in this restaurant early on that morning.
24:20
Speaker 1: A waitress says she served them, but no one else
24:23
Speaker 1: has come forward to substantiate that. Wow. So a clerk
24:27
Speaker 1: at a communist store says he saw cherryl of It
24:29
Speaker 1: that morning looking for her daughter and friends. We also
24:35
Speaker 1: have a waitress climbing that she serves them. What do
24:39
Speaker 1: we know about that? And Roderick Jones, Well, I think
24:42
Speaker 1: during this entire time, there were so many theories that
24:44
Speaker 1: were coming up. The police were We're chasing so many leads.
24:48
Speaker 1: So you know, you did have that theory of a
24:52
Speaker 1: gas station clerk at one point, and then the waitress
24:54
Speaker 1: at Georgia's Steakhouse, which was a place that I went
24:58
Speaker 1: growing up. It was a twenty four hour call beach shop,
25:00
Speaker 1: kind of you know, divy diner place, and it was
25:04
Speaker 1: really close to the house on Delmar, so you know,
25:07
Speaker 1: it certainly could have been plausible. That was one that
25:10
Speaker 1: was looked into. There were some theories of a green band.
25:13
Speaker 1: There were certainly so many theories and certainly so many
25:17
Speaker 1: tips that were called in at this time that I
25:19
Speaker 1: believe it was hard to keep them straight and it
25:21
Speaker 1: was hard to probably sus all of them out true.
25:25
Speaker 1: But about those two tips, let's talk about how we
25:28
Speaker 1: could prove it if there was not a surveillance video
25:31
Speaker 1: camera in the diner or at the communience store. What
25:35
Speaker 1: about receipts Joe Scott Morgan, what about that? Would that
25:39
Speaker 1: be a way to prove it? Or if a credit
25:41
Speaker 1: card was used, or a receipt where three people were Donnie,
25:45
Speaker 1: so they've got three breakfast orders, wouldn't that go a
25:49
Speaker 1: long way to proving whether it was true or not
25:52
Speaker 1: a lot of that would be depended upon how sophisticated
25:55
Speaker 1: the register was at that particular time. Think back to
25:58
Speaker 1: that period of time. If it's okay from carry kind
26:00
Speaker 1: of business, they're not using credit cards or anything else.
26:03
Speaker 1: Maybe they're just writing out a receipt. I don't know
26:05
Speaker 1: that anything would necessarily have been available digitally certainly or
26:10
Speaker 1: a record of that. That would be a place to start, though,
26:14
Speaker 1: because it gives you kind of foundationally something numerically you
26:17
Speaker 1: know that you can go on that, you can kind
26:19
Speaker 1: of pinpoint that place in time. You know, this is
26:22
Speaker 1: a world that's completely free, completely free of cell phones
26:26
Speaker 1: and all of that kind of digital information that we
26:29
Speaker 1: deal with today. You know, I have never been to
26:32
Speaker 1: let's just say, waffle house where the waitress didn't write
26:38
Speaker 1: down on a pad what was being ordered and then
26:43
Speaker 1: that would be attached to a receipt. So I'm not
26:47
Speaker 1: quite sure how that can't be in existence. I mean,
26:53
Speaker 1: you know, to you to cold to board hodge Clube,
26:56
Speaker 1: handwritten receipts are just as good as digital receipts the
26:59
Speaker 1: amount of the time on them. But I find it
27:01
Speaker 1: hard to believe that that story, at least that the
27:04
Speaker 1: mom was having breakfast for the girls early early in
27:08
Speaker 1: the morning, and there's not a receipt of that. I
27:11
Speaker 1: would agree. I think that's definitely an excellent place to start.
27:15
Speaker 1: The problem is the passage of time and what people
27:18
Speaker 1: thought was relevant then when they weren't quite sure what
27:21
Speaker 1: they were looking at, versus what they thought or think
27:24
Speaker 1: now could be useful are two very different things than
27:28
Speaker 1: With the passages so much time, you just don't know
27:31
Speaker 1: what's available. The only way to find out is to act.
27:34
Speaker 1: There were leads. Take a listen to our fensy kolr
27:38
Speaker 1: Ten Police have made much of identifying this composite sketch.
27:42
Speaker 1: A woman saw the transient looking man in the neighborhood
27:45
Speaker 1: near the Levin home around the time the women disappeared,
27:48
Speaker 1: but no one else has confirmed those sightings and no
27:51
Speaker 1: identification has been made. Police are also trying to track
27:55
Speaker 1: down a brown, older model Dodge van like this one.
27:59
Speaker 1: It was reportedly seen in the area early on the
28:01
Speaker 1: morning the women disappeared, but again by only one person
28:05
Speaker 1: and the report is so far unsubstantiated. Leads that were
28:09
Speaker 1: generated at the time but seemingly have all gone cold.
28:14
Speaker 1: These women never seen again, the case seemingly stymied. Take
28:19
Speaker 1: a listen to Francis Watson KYTV. For nearly two weeks,
28:23
Speaker 1: police and citizens in Springfield, Missouri have been haunted by
28:27
Speaker 1: a mystery that mystery only deepening as time went by.
28:30
Speaker 1: Tips about a suspicious looking van in the area around
28:33
Speaker 1: the time of the disappearance put authorities on high alert.
28:36
Speaker 1: All the agencies in the area are working very hard
28:38
Speaker 1: to try and locate these people on these bands. All leads,
28:43
Speaker 1: no matter how incredible, hunted down Lead number fifteen th
28:47
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixteen. There's a buzzards flying over some
28:51
Speaker 1: silow or something, and they were they would send people
28:54
Speaker 1: book out joining me. First cop on the scene, Rick
28:57
Speaker 1: tell me about how crazy it was at the time
29:02
Speaker 1: these three women go missing to search for them. Well,
29:05
Speaker 1: it was certainly full throttle. Every resource available and even
29:12
Speaker 1: ones that weren't we're put into this. And as Chief
29:19
Speaker 1: Web mentioned in that tape, every single call that came
29:26
Speaker 1: in was documented and the officers were sent to investigate,
29:30
Speaker 1: and it didn't matter where it was, whether it was
29:33
Speaker 1: in our jurisdiction or not. Time stories with Nancy Grace.
29:51
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the timeline Jo Scott Morgan. So the
29:56
Speaker 1: girls get to the home, everybody jump in if I've
29:58
Speaker 1: got it wrong, around two am, and then they're reported
30:02
Speaker 1: missing the following morning, I guess around nine ish when
30:07
Speaker 1: they didn't show up to go to the water park.
30:09
Speaker 1: So you've got a seven hour window. And I also
30:13
Speaker 1: can't help but wonder about neighbors. How easy it would
30:19
Speaker 1: have been to get the girls and the mom over
30:22
Speaker 1: to a neighbor's house, as opposed to struggling to get
30:26
Speaker 1: all three of them into a vehicle, because obviously they
30:29
Speaker 1: were taking in a vehicle unless they went to a
30:32
Speaker 1: neighbor's home. How do you marshal them to get them
30:34
Speaker 1: out of the door. You know, a threat of force,
30:37
Speaker 1: I think is really the only way that that could
30:39
Speaker 1: potentially be accomplished. If you're going to throw a firearm
30:42
Speaker 1: up in these three women's face. You know, keep in
30:45
Speaker 1: mind two o'clock in the morning. There you're in a daze.
30:48
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys, but I am. You know,
30:51
Speaker 1: you come walking into this environment, you're going to have
30:54
Speaker 1: compliant people. The fact that I think that maybe we
30:58
Speaker 1: didn't hear screaming or anything like that goes to this idea.
31:02
Speaker 1: You know, you either do what I say or I'm
31:05
Speaker 1: going to kill you right here to get them out
31:07
Speaker 1: of the door. And you're right, there has to be
31:09
Speaker 1: a motor vehicle involved in this, And how do you
31:12
Speaker 1: get them into that car? And relative to the neighbors,
31:16
Speaker 1: did they see anything that was out of the ordinary
31:19
Speaker 1: relative to a car that would have pulled up in there?
31:23
Speaker 1: And when I've seen the images from the scene, Nancy,
31:28
Speaker 1: regarding the two cars that were there, it's almost like
31:31
Speaker 1: a looped driveway. You think about, well, are you going
31:34
Speaker 1: to walk them across the front lawn into a waiting vehicle.
31:37
Speaker 1: Is there a back way to get them out of
31:39
Speaker 1: the house. Is there any evidence that that could have occurred?
31:42
Speaker 1: Or did you pull up right to the door and
31:45
Speaker 1: you know, you get them into the vehicle and then
31:47
Speaker 1: spirit them off into the night, and you know, by
31:50
Speaker 1: that time, seven hours down range, you could be anywhere
31:53
Speaker 1: heading out of Springfield in any number of different directions.
31:57
Speaker 1: Then evidence or a tip comes forth about a parking structure.
32:04
Speaker 1: Take a listener ends at KY three. The parking structure
32:07
Speaker 1: at Cox's Health South campus was examined with special equipment
32:11
Speaker 1: after rumors circulated that the women were buried there, though
32:14
Speaker 1: nothing was found. An anonymous mail caller told KY three
32:18
Speaker 1: that inside this newspaper stand also note with possible clues
32:22
Speaker 1: on the women's whereabouts. It was found in an invope
32:24
Speaker 1: need to cut the words out, just like in the movies.
32:27
Speaker 1: Over the years, tips continue to trickle in, not only
32:30
Speaker 1: to police, but to our station. These handwritten letters mail
32:33
Speaker 1: to KY three with vague details and theories about what
32:36
Speaker 1: happened here on Delmar Street. Sending tips or information to
32:42
Speaker 1: a TV station is thought unheard of. Everyone's familiar with
32:46
Speaker 1: BTK buying, torture kill serial killer Dennis writer who would
32:53
Speaker 1: actually engage in conversations and communications with local media. So
33:00
Speaker 1: do you recall Rick book out the search of the
33:02
Speaker 1: College Health Medical Center based on a timp the three
33:06
Speaker 1: women were buried there? Yes, I remember that. And if
33:10
Speaker 1: I could back up just a minute to the neighbors,
33:14
Speaker 1: another officer and myself at the time that evening, we
33:18
Speaker 1: canvass the neighborhood, all the neighbors on the street behind,
33:24
Speaker 1: next door, across the street, and no one saw or
33:29
Speaker 1: heard anything. And logistically talking about the vehicle parked in
33:35
Speaker 1: front of the house or in the loop, this house
33:38
Speaker 1: was only about a half a block away from a
33:40
Speaker 1: major business roadway, and so the east side of the
33:48
Speaker 1: house was a privacy fence. On the other side of
33:50
Speaker 1: the privacy fence was a parking lot to a business.
33:54
Speaker 1: That would be my guess where if there was a
33:56
Speaker 1: vehicle involved, it would have been parked there. Yep. I
33:59
Speaker 1: think you're right, and we've seen that before where a
34:02
Speaker 1: part will enter through a fence to get into a yard.
34:06
Speaker 1: But coming from a major thoroughfare or like you're saying,
34:09
Speaker 1: a business, what are your other thoughts on them being
34:14
Speaker 1: spirited away? How did it happen. Rick, Well, you know,
34:17
Speaker 1: I wish I knew. It's always been my opinion that
34:21
Speaker 1: this broken globe. I think it was broken on the
34:24
Speaker 1: way out rather than on the way in. But that's
34:28
Speaker 1: just my opinion. Broken on the way Why do you
34:30
Speaker 1: say that, Well, if it were broken on the way in,
34:32
Speaker 1: and as the gentleman stated, they may not have had
34:36
Speaker 1: shoes on, I don't think they're gonna walk three barefooted
34:39
Speaker 1: people through broken glass. But and if it was, if
34:44
Speaker 1: it were broken on the way out, you know, you
34:46
Speaker 1: have to say, well, how would that have been broken
34:49
Speaker 1: on the way out? Could have been broken if somebody
34:51
Speaker 1: was carrying something or struggling. Yeah, yeah, And the fact
34:55
Speaker 1: that the bulb itself wasn't wasn't broken just the globe,
35:00
Speaker 1: because you're right, that is a very common thing. People
35:03
Speaker 1: don't want to be seen. They'll disables the bulb and
35:06
Speaker 1: it wasn't. So I think it was just knocked. I
35:10
Speaker 1: think it was knocked loose. I'm not sure anybody did
35:12
Speaker 1: it intentionally, but again just my opinion. Now, cops say
35:16
Speaker 1: they are making progress. Are they take a listen our
35:19
Speaker 1: forensic ko l R Ten Police say they have made
35:22
Speaker 1: significant progress since the three women turned up missing. They've
35:25
Speaker 1: sifted through items inside the East Delmar home. Analysts continue
35:29
Speaker 1: looking at everything from fingerprints to financial records in the
35:33
Speaker 1: hunt for clues. They put together background reports on Stacy
35:37
Speaker 1: McCall and Susie Streeter. Two detectives flew to the Seattle
35:40
Speaker 1: area hoping to complete a profile of Cheryl Levitt's life,
35:45
Speaker 1: but many of the most dramatical leads mentioned publicly by
35:47
Speaker 1: police so far have been based on thin or unsubstantiated information.
35:52
Speaker 1: To you and Roderick Jones, star of the Springfield Three,
35:57
Speaker 1: a small town disappearance podcast, Looking tell Me About Robert
36:01
Speaker 1: Craig Cox. So, Robert Craig Cox was from Springfield, Missouri.
36:08
Speaker 1: He was an army ranger, and he was later accused
36:12
Speaker 1: of killing Sharon Zellers, who was found in Orange County, Florida,
36:16
Speaker 1: when he was staying there with his parents in a
36:18
Speaker 1: day's inn. He was not convicted of that until eleven
36:22
Speaker 1: years later, and then when he was on death row
36:24
Speaker 1: for Sharon Zellers, there wasn't enough evidence to convict him,
36:27
Speaker 1: it was reversed and he went free. It was reported
36:31
Speaker 1: during that time that he was free. He lived in Springfield,
36:34
Speaker 1: Missouri before then later, you know, just avoiding basically avoiding prison.
36:41
Speaker 1: He ended up going to prison later for kidnapping. He
36:46
Speaker 1: claimed that he had an alibi the night that the
36:48
Speaker 1: three women went missing. It was from his fiance and
36:52
Speaker 1: they said that they were at church. And then it
36:54
Speaker 1: later turns out that his fiance recanted her statement. He's
36:58
Speaker 1: in a Texas prison. He says that he knows where
37:01
Speaker 1: the women are, he knows where they're buried, and that
37:03
Speaker 1: he won't say until after his mother is dead. And
37:06
Speaker 1: his mother is still alive at this time. Tell me
37:09
Speaker 1: about the case of Sharon Sellers. So Sharon Sellers was
37:13
Speaker 1: a young woman. She was getting off work later in
37:16
Speaker 1: the evening and her body was found that night. It
37:21
Speaker 1: was decomposed. It just so happened that Robert Craigcox was
37:26
Speaker 1: visiting Florida during that time. I believe he was visiting
37:29
Speaker 1: from California, where he had lived, and he was staying
37:32
Speaker 1: with his parents at a day's in. He came back bloodied,
37:35
Speaker 1: part of his tongue was bitten off. At the time,
37:39
Speaker 1: there wasn't enough evidence to convict him, but he was
37:43
Speaker 1: convicted eleven years later. He said on death row and
37:46
Speaker 1: then in the state of Florida, there wasn't enough evidence
37:49
Speaker 1: and the conviction was reversed and he went free and
37:53
Speaker 1: ends up right here in town where the girls go
37:56
Speaker 1: missing and Roderick Jones, what do you make of a
38:00
Speaker 1: girlfriend's recentation? Well, you know, her daughter actually reached out
38:05
Speaker 1: to me after listening to the podcast and just listening
38:09
Speaker 1: to the episode about Robert Craig Cox, and was like,
38:11
Speaker 1: you know, I think I need to call in and
38:13
Speaker 1: talk about this. She had never spoken about it, but
38:15
Speaker 1: her mother was the one who was engaged to Robert
38:17
Speaker 1: Craig Cox, and they all lived in the home together.
38:20
Speaker 1: And her mother currently has alzheimer, So you know, we
38:23
Speaker 1: weren't able to get an interview with her, but her
38:25
Speaker 1: daughter told me that her mother did recamp that statement
38:30
Speaker 1: that you know, at the time, she was really in
38:32
Speaker 1: love with Robert Craig Cox. He was incredibly charismatic and
38:37
Speaker 1: had convinced her to say that they were at church together.
38:39
Speaker 1: To Rick book Out, the former Springfield police officer first
38:43
Speaker 1: on the scene, what do you make of this guy?
38:45
Speaker 1: Do you think he is a killer? Well, you know,
38:49
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I really don't know. I've
38:51
Speaker 1: talked to detectives who have gone down and interviewed him,
38:56
Speaker 1: and you know they're they're just not real sure either.
39:01
Speaker 1: Good question too, and Roderick Jones, what does this guy
39:06
Speaker 1: have to say, Robert Cox that could not be gleaned
39:10
Speaker 1: from media reports. You know, it's a great question, and
39:14
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he does. I tried to get
39:16
Speaker 1: an interview with him and wasn't able to do so.
39:19
Speaker 1: He wasn't interested in it. But you know, it certainly
39:22
Speaker 1: could be sensationalizing this, which is you know why we
39:25
Speaker 1: just told the story from the facts that we had.
39:27
Speaker 1: Certainly didn't want to sensationalize this tragedy, and it seems
39:31
Speaker 1: that you know, he could he could certainly be doing so.
39:34
Speaker 1: Toda Sherry Schwartz forensic psychologists. It wouldn't be the first
39:38
Speaker 1: time that an inmate sought to enhance his reputation or
39:43
Speaker 1: notoriety by claiming responsibility for a notorious crime. Absolutely, it
39:48
Speaker 1: happens fairly frequently, unfortunately, and when I first heard that
39:54
Speaker 1: this person has claimed responsibility, it makes me wonder what
39:58
Speaker 1: kind of privilege edges they're getting or you know, in
40:03
Speaker 1: non technical terms, street cred in the prison for claiming
40:07
Speaker 1: responsibility because they find it curious, if they're looking for attention,
40:10
Speaker 1: why he wouldn't agree to be interviewed for the podcast.
40:13
Speaker 1: And he of course was in Springful at the time
40:16
Speaker 1: of the disappearance and very very curious. Police went to
40:20
Speaker 1: speak to him immediately after the disappearance. As of right now,
40:26
Speaker 1: no resolution. If you have or think you have information
40:31
Speaker 1: about the disappearance of these women, please dial four one
40:35
Speaker 1: seven eight six four eighteen ten, Repeat four one seven
40:41
Speaker 1: eight six four eighteen ten. Nancy Grace Crumbs story signing off,
40:47
Speaker 1: good bye friend,